Strauss Colony
The Strauss Colony was a commercial project aimed at populating the moon of Tau Gliese c. It was sponsored by the Pelicon Conglomerate under the lead of Mexin Strauss. Starting with a founder population of 80 individuals, it soon ballooned to over 4000 within the space of ten years. The settlers earned their keep by harvesting subterranean deposits of rare minerals which were transported to nearby space stations once every month. Preparing these minerals on the surface significantly reduced the cost of transporting and refining large amounts of material waste off-planet. The enterprise proved lucrative and attracted a steady stream of entrepreneurs which lead to further expansion of the colony. Eight years after the first settlers arrived, a century-long project was launched to begin terraforming the nitrogen-rich atmosphere with large amounts of methane and ozone regularly supplied by vast cargo freighters. Frozen lakes beneath the moon' surface were thawed and pumped up to the surface to be filled with resilient strains of algae. To further aid in the development of civilisation, Pelicon supported the increasingly wealthy settlers with android technology. These lifelike machines were used to fulfill menial tasks, allowing the residents to devote themselves to the profitable enterprises which guaranteed their development. It became a widely recognised status symbol to own a large number of android servants. The elite businessfolk were known to command upward of 200 machines for their personal uses, while even the least successful strove to maintain a good half a dozen androids to support their lifestyle. Fifty years after the colony was founded, many of the fledgling enterprises had matured into system-wide behemoths. Pelicon was reluctant to see its influence dwindling as wealthy sub-corporations banded together into effective unions, utilising their leading market positions to boycott and blackmail dependent buyers into submission. A prominent union by the name of Apex gained considerably large portions of power from the colonial government. Mexin Strauss was strongly opposed to the unions and sought to secure continued development aid from the Pelicon Conglomerate. He was ultimately unable to affirm himself against the Apex group and lost his position in the government due to lack of support. He died of natural causes two years later, and with him the last loyalist sentiment towards the Conglomerate. After a decade of turmoil, Pelicon cut off its support for the colony and branded the Apex group's activity as criminal. A blockade was set up to prevent trade beyond the nearest star systems until Apex submitted to corporate control. Due to Apex' influence, however, they continued to wield considerable leverage over nearby governments and were able to maintain trade relations albeit with less profit than before. Strauss Colony now consisted of a good 100'000 residents. With the market suddenly severely limited, Apex used it muscle to wrestle control from smaller entrepreneurs. It was soon declared illegal for any non-member of Apex to harvest the lucrative mineral deposits which had made Strauss Colony prosper. The private android armies of the elite prevented any civil unrest from taking hold. Over the next five years, the gulf between rich and poor grew wider than ever before. Profit soon lost its glamour, especially as the industrious first generation of settlers passed away and their offspring sought quality of life through less simplistic means. The search for fulfillment entered a new stage. Glitz and extravagance was increasingly frowned upon as hedonism was branded as weakness of the mind, a symptom of primitive intellect. Spiritual enlightenment became the new vogue, maybe as a way for the true elite to distinguish itself from the unworthy. A prominent member of Apex, Seph Corbin, founded a new school of thought which he dubbed the'' "The Path of the Pure". He harkened back to old folk legends and showed how they were meant to guide the mind down the true path of evolution. His first and most famous work was ''"The Path Untrodden", which proved extremely popular among the spiritual Apex offspring. First life was born of three brothers. Onid the white light, most bright of the bright. Lohath the echo, equal in all measures. Quarn the whisper, who was shattered into a million pieces upon his delivery. Jealous of his siblings, Quarn sought to bring about their demise. He drew lust from the Well of Desire and disguised it in a vial of wine. Quarn headed into Lohath's cave and knelt before him. '' ''"Drink, brother. For wine is the drink of Gods as befits our kin." And Lohath replied: "Wine is the bringer of joy. Why should I draw from its strength?" To which Quarn mockingly answered: "All things must be enjoyed and suffered in equal measure. Only through experience can one find true balance." Lohath drank from the wine, and with it he found lust. And lust told him that he must combine Onid's light with Quarn's darkness to create the perfect twilight. So he climbed Onid's mountain and told him he sought his light. "But brother", replied Onid, "why do you require what is not yours to have?" And Lohath smiled. "I shall bring about judgement to end all conflicts. I shall bring about fairness to end all dispute. I shall bring about dusk to end all time." "Yet you seek to control what you don't understand. Lest you bring about damnation, I must put an end to your selfish acts." And the two brothers fought for ten day and ten nights. On the eleventh day Onid took Lohath and threw him into the abyss. And Lohath perished. "And now", spoke Onid, "I must bring about the end to greed." And he descended into the deeps, where he found Quarn before the Well of Desires. "So you murder your brother.", said Quarn, "And now you seek my powers too." "No. I do not tread the path of deception and greed. My place is on my mountain." '' ''And Onid took Quarn by the neck and drowned him in the Well of Lust until the waters foamed. The new generation was remarkable for its drive for perfection. The body was considered a weak vessel unworthy of carrying the unchained mind, so experiments were conducted to prolong the natural life span. No sum of money was spared in the search for improvements to the biological form. Huge fortunes dissipated and businesses collapsed as the movement became increasingly fanatic in its conduct. The second and third generation settlers became known for their obsession with technological enhancements. The mind was virtually expanded through neurological implants. Then in increasing age defunct parts of the body were either genetically altered or replaced with machinery to sustain their functions. In search of the perfect offspring, gametes were genetically enhanced with the best genes available within the colony. The fetuses were too resource-intensive to be carried by another living organism and had to be raised in nourishment tanks. After ten years of infancy, the first children of the fourth age emerged from their breeding grounds. In the meanwhile, many of the forefathers had begun taking on morbid forms. There were those that swore by bionics and those who sought perfection through genetic altercations. While there were also those who practiced both, the Apex soon split into the mechanical Cyborn and the biological Chosen. Although united in their ideology, both sides grew to mistrust one another. The common settlers found themselves split too. Some witnessed the transformation of the elite with horror, while others looked on in envy. The Path of the Pure began spreading among the populace, much to the distain of Apex, who regarded commoners as "spawn of Quarn". As the children of the fourth age grew into adolescence, it soon became clear that they were superhuman in every respect. Their minds were capable of processing information a dozenfold faster than the most intellectual of their predecessors, their bodies grew lean and muscular. They were bald from head to toe and their eyes a startling shade of violet. They also showed more ambition than any of the settlers that had gone before them. The Chosen worshipped them as the fulfillment of their evolutionary cycle. While their bloated, grotesquely deformed bodies granted them many extended decades and possibly even centuries of life, their minds were proving unable to fend off age-releated illnesses of the brain. The children of the fourth age looked on in disgust as their elders deteriorated into what they considered subhuman forms. Unable to bring themselves to kill their forefathers, as this would be an act of Lohath, they banished both the Chosen and the Cyborn in subterranean vaults to live out their days hidden in shame from the perfect brightness of the sun. Then they turned their wrath on the spawn of Quarn, who in their eyes sought to usurp their power through greed and jealousy. Unleashing their progenetors' android armies, the children of the fourth age brought hell to the population of the Strauss Colony. In the first day of the massacre alone, over 80'000 settlers were brutally slain by the compassionless androids. Survivors desperately sought assistance from the Pelicon Corporation, begging them to return and put an end to the slaughter. But Pelicon watched on, giving the children of the fourth age ample time to slaughter thousands more before arriving on the moon of Tau Gliese c with a warfleet. Bomber crews descended from space and destroyed the remaining vestiges of civilisation even as the children of the fourth age fled to far fetches of the galaxy in their high-tech space cruisers. Eight and a half decades of habitation was wiped out within hours. The industrial equipment on the moon was spared, and so Pelicon etablished a small mining facility in the ruins of the Strauss Colony under total control of the Conglomerate. But unbeknown to them, the secret subterranean vaults remained undamaged and dormant. The Apex lived on, deteriorating further and further as time progressed.